


I Feel Like Me

by Anonymous



Category: My Engineer (TV)
Genre: Friendship/Love, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Identity, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:08:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24341827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: “It’s okay, I want to.” He sits up slightly. “I never felt like a woman, and most of the time I don’t feel like a man, I’m just- I’m me. I feel like me.”
Relationships: King/Ram (My Engineer)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 140
Collections: Anonymous





	I Feel Like Me

King hates this part of him. Sometimes it’s tolerable, especially when he doesn’t think about it too much, and some of the time he’s indifferent. He would have stayed home but there’s a test today and he can’t miss it. He trudges on his school pant, shirt, and the blue one that’s just a little longer than the others. He makes it to school quickly and everything is fine until lunch. Then the pain begins, his lower stomach screaming in agony. He does his best not to show it, and after years of this he’s gotten pretty good.

“The test is in an hours, I’m not ready…” Boss whines as Mek smiles. He pats his back and King almost, almost says something, but he can’t. Not when he’s in such pain.

Bohn notices because of course he does. He gives King that concerned look he always does and says, “Maybe we should skive off the afternoon. Go and get ice cream or something.”

King looks up, a half glare in his eyes as he says, “We have a test.” Then more darkly and quietly so the others can’t hear, “Drop it.”

Bohn looks like he wants to do anything but that, but thankfully he listens. King makes it through lunch and then it’s the test. He grits his teeth as he fills out each question quickly. The clock ticking down is like a bomb waiting to explode for him as he sits in the classroom, having to wait for the class to be over before he can leave, even though he’s already finished his test. He still has to wait.

The bell rings, and ‘ _finally_ ,’ is what King thinks in relieved sigh as he gets up and practically runs out of the building. He wants to get to the bus stop soon, he wants to go home, take some good drugs, curl up, and drink some tea. His plants standing around giving him silent comfort. The rain that he’s sure will fall today pitter-pattering on his window. A warm blanket, the pain hopefully gone, or if not gone, lessened.

“King! King, wait up!” Bohn calls as he grabs King’s arm just outside the building. King has no choice to turn to him and ask anxiously, because he doesn’t want to miss the bus, “What!?”

Neither notice the other man lurking in the shadows, their junior Ram on his way to class, stopping at the scene in front of him. He never liked Bohn, and he likes King a whole lot, and there’s anger here. Exasperation. He stills and waits, concerned but not wanting to walk in on something that has nothing to do with him.

“I’ll drive you home.” Bohn tells him.

“You have class.” Is King’s deadpanned answer, his chest squirming at the added attention. He hates it. He hates anything that makes him feel weaker, lesser, what he is. He just wants to be treated like any other guy, because that’s what and who he is, but Bohn can be a little overprotective, more so than he is with their other friends. When King called him out for it one time, Bohn insisted it was only because they’re best friends. Knew each other the longest, the honesty in his eyes real, but King can’t help but still feel like that’s not it. That it’s only because Bohn _knows_ , and that’s all he sees. Not who King really is, but what everyone says- said he was- is.

“So do you.” Is Bohn’s quick reply. “Come on, I’ll drive you. Don’t complain. You left your medicine at home, right?”

And King can’t because Bohn is right. He did leave it behind stupidly, and he doesn’t feel like waiting through an hour on the bus to get home. Any other day it would have been nice, peaceful, but at the moment his stomach is going to kill him, so he nods, reluctantly, and with a major hit to his pride and manhood. “Fine.”

From the shadows Ram watches them go, a pit in his stomach full of concern. He stayed at King’s for almost three weeks. They grew closer, Ram’s heart grew fonder, and even though he’s not living with him anymore, they still see each other. They’re still friends. They’re still _them_ , no label really needed, he thinks.

.

“What are you doing here?” King’s eyes are furrowed into confusion as he looks to Ram who stands outside his door. He clutches at his backpack almost nervously. He’s reaching for his phone, ready to send a text of explanation, but before he can King is clutching at his stomach, a helpless groan escaping his lips.

Ram’s concern grows as he reaches out and touches King, bringing him close. He leads him to the couch, door shut behind them both with a kick of Ram’s foot. There’s a blanket laid out that King must have been laying on, and it’s where Ram helps him to sit. On the coffee table in front of them is an empty packet of some kind of medicine and a glass of water. Ram eyes it carefully then turns to king who still clutches his stomach.

“Sick?” He asks, words coming out more quickly in the rush of concern that comes.

King looks up to him, half ashamed. “Sort of.”

Ram nods then gets up, leaving King’s side and his warmth in favour of his closet. King watches as he pulls out the hot water bottle. It’s an older style, used to be his sister’s, but he’s never had the heart to get an electric heating pad. Every time he tried it left his hands shaking and his eyes darting around anxiously at the thought of anyone _knowing_. It’s not necessarily that he minds people knowing, he’s just afraid of how they’ll see him once they _know_. He’ll no longer be King, but _Kana_ , and that’s not who he is.

“Lay down.” Ram says as he holds the hot bottle in front of him, the rubber a little torn from it’s usage. King complies though, the pain ripping him up. He lays back and Ram ever so gently places it on King’s stomach. He takes the blanket and pulls it over him. Movements slow and careful, soft in their execution. It leaves a warm flutter in King’s chest as he stares at Ram almost in wonder. “Better?”

It seems it’s King’s turn to be at a loss of word. “Y- Yeah. Thank you.” He looks away, suddenly a blush forming on his cheeks.

“I did this for my mom. Dad would always be on business. She was alone with me and Ruj a lot. She got bad cramps.” Ram explains, and his words are long, drawn out, and more than he’s ever spoken to King before, but it also tells him what he was afraid of. That Ram knows. He feels his back sweat, his hands shake, and his heart beat so fast he’s afraid he’s going to have a heart attack.

“H- How did you-” King stops himself, unable to say the words.

Ram looks to him, tilting his head as if to say, ‘I lived here with you for almost three weeks. I’d be an idiot not to know.’ But then another looks cross his features, a look of uncertainty and fear, ‘sorry.’

“What are you sorry for, cool boy?” King can’t help but ask, confused by Ram’s sudden change in posture. His stomach finally starting to feel better as he realizes what Ram said about his mom. How he took care of her like that because his father isn’t around much, it gives greater context to his dilemma with what he knows.

“You don’t want me to know.” Ram says, the words taking a few minutes before he’s able to get them out.

King smiles slightly, awkward and afraid. “It’s not like that, I just- everyone looks at me differently when they know, you know?”

Ram tilts his head, confused.

Ram chuckles without humour. “Or not. I guess I should explain?”

Ram shakes his head, ‘you don’t have to.’

“It’s okay, I want to.” He sits up slightly. “I never felt like a woman, and most of the time I don’t feel like a man, I’m just- I’m me. I feel like me.”

King had gotten surgery on his chest, when he was nineteen, his sister’s hand in his the whole time, and then the T shots every week. After everything started to come together, he could finally look into the mirror and see who he’s always known he is. Always known but could never see until then, until now.

“I just feel like me.”

Ram reaches out then, hand on King’s as he smiles. No confusion, no uncertainty, no judgment, and no change really. His smile is the same as it’s always been. The look he gives King is the same. Ram isn’t looking at him any differently. Not for one second.

He understands him, too, it seems.

**Author's Note:**

> King refers to himself as a guy, and that's all there is to say really.


End file.
